EXCLUSIVE: There’s a lot of cash getting stuffed in those Backrooms. The A24 Kane Parsons feature take of his digital IP is racking up $9M in previews which began at 4PM.
We told you presales were at a crazy blockbuster level, around Scream 7‘s. Well, guess what? The previews here for Backrooms are ahead of Scream 7‘s $7.8M, as well as John Wick: Chapter 4 ($8.9M) and not far from Eternals ($9.5M) and Five Night’s at Freddy’s ($10.3M); the latter another fervent fan-driven property. The opening range for those movies are between $63.6M and $80M, and many distribution sources are now giddy that this R-rated genre movie will easily blow past its most recent forecast of $40M-$45M. Again, it’s all about how front-loaded this is. As of tracking this AM, Backrooms was hot with men and women under 25 and not far from the first choice for Final Destination: Bloodlines ($51.6M opening).
Success has many fathers and those are Atomic Monster-Blumhouse, 21 Laps, Odd Fellow and Chernin Entertainment on Parsons’ feature directorial debut. The latter co-financed this pic for under $10M with A24. From the sounds of it, Backrooms looks to be in the black by the end of the weekend.
Currently, critics are outweighing audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% to 74%, for this movie which follows a therapist (Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve) who goes looking for patient (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in his desolate furniture store. An alter, freakish universe is found within.
OBSESSION, from left: Michael Johnston, Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson, 2025. © Focus Features /Courtesy Everett Collection
In another rally for movies from YouTube creators, Curry Barker’s Obsession from Focus Features and Blumhouse/Atomic Monster beat Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu on Wednesday, $5.6M to $4.1M. Running cume for Obsession stands at $73.5M to Mando and Baby Yoda’s $108.8M. Obsession is now the No. 1 movie for the week in some prolific theaters including AMC Empire in Times Square and Regal Union Square in NYC. The question now is how hard will Mandalorian and Grogu fall with a double feature of Obsession and Backrooms on marquees?